Kampung Football

My love affair with the club started because King of The Corner had a dubious plan to cheat RM50 out of me. He wanted me to place a bet on Leicester City to win against Chelsea FC. Guess who was betting on Chelsea then? How was I to know EPL when I don’t even have Astro. This man tried to convince me that Leicester City was the best team in EPL. Fortunately there was Bulletin TV3 and Berita RTM – Segment Sukan Luar Negara. It saved me from losing RM50 to the con artist and it also brought me closer to Chelsea.

Honestly, I didn't know much of football when I was growing up. The only football I knew was the one in my Kampung Kastam. Football was freedom – I was only allowed to go out at 5pm and the first thing to do was to meet up with other kids from the kampong at our Padang.

Football in my Kampung, especially for kids, we were only allowed to play on the playground which was made up of a tiny space of grass to play on. We had to make do with what ever resources we had. The monkey bar was the goal post. The swings were our imaginary defenders because we used to swing it wildly at our opponents – Godspeed, if you still want to enter our turf. I swear to God, some kids actually lost couple of teeth. There were no referees, we made up our own rules. If you’ve broken a bone or more during the game, you’ll be considered hardcore and no kid will ever want to mess with you. That was football in my Kampung.

Nobody respects you if you go running home to tell your mom that other kids called you by your ethnicity like Suarez did. All I could remember was football as my green card to behave like a moron which was the  reason for me getting beaten up or vice versa.   

For the love of football, we need to learn to take some hits. Jabs and uppercuts, it should not stop us from coming back the next day. So forget about cuts and bruises, friends and foes .... We didn't care, then and now.

Cheers to In The Blue Corner.